


American Ready Cut System Houses

by IzzyLightwood



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 14:49:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9186962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyLightwood/pseuds/IzzyLightwood
Summary: Your postcard said, "Nothing like a little disaster to sort things out."





	

     He was used to things not working out. Hadn’t Robert Frost said it himself? ‘Nothing gold can stay.’ It didn’t come as a surprise that his glimpse of happiness found its end in a London bar in the middle of winter.

     It was hot inside the bar, the way his cramped bedroom would feel when a heat-wave came crashing again over the city. He hated his tiny apartment, but without a roommate he couldn’t possibly afford the flat they’d been living in for those past five years. But that winter night, in that hot bar, found them seated together for what would most likely be the last time, or at least the last for a long while.

     He knew why this was happening. He rested his head on the shoulder he knew so well, willing his eyes to keep their tears hidden. He was glad for the dim light. He would keep it together, as he always tried to, but he knew. Even drunk and numb, he had no question as to what would happen next. They’d gone on for hours in this place, going over it all, and now it was two a.m. An arm came around his back to hold him, softly, reluctant, unsure whether after all that had been said if this was okay to do, or if he wanted the touch. But he did. Of course he did.

     He was asked to say something, anything, but he couldn’t. What could he possibly have to say? He could barely speak let alone formulate any argument. He knew that what he wanted on top of all else was too much to give to anyone, and the only person he had thought to gift it to didn’t want it. What could he possibly say?

     They had searched for their home for two years, and were sure on their buy the moment they had walked inside. It was home in every sense, most of all because of who they stood next to. His leaving meant he had to go too. Not affordable, for one, and two because home is where the heart is, and his heart had been taken on the road, long gone. He chased it, searching the world to find it again. He had to move away from that bathtub overflown with memories stitched to those of another; the bleeding from that shredded seam had to be clotted by now. Wasn’t it over yet? The kitchen where they had cooked and kissed on the countertops smelled of the bleach kept beneath the sinks, not American pancakes they had flipped atop the stove. He had tried to cauterize the wound hadn’t he? Wasn’t it over?

     He found out as a third winter since Then passed that the building housing their home had been demolished. The building, not the aching, was replaced with a shopping center. Londoners could fill their lives with material things while he worked to fill his life with meaning once again. He tried not to pass that area, but if he ever did he could almost hear the voices that had once been happy, the TV blasting, stir fry sizzling. Gone and floating with the stars, now.

     _I’m here for you._ A promise broken, if it had been meant as one. Maybe he had taken it too seriously, as though he hadn’t learned his lesson after all this time, in his life, in this world, in this state of void.

     He would keep moving on, keep on keeping on, humming the songs they used to sing together on his own, according to his desire.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on the poem "American Ready Cut System Houses" by Heather Derr-Smith. I read it, and the very first thought I had at the line about the bar at two a.m. was Dan and Phil and this heartbreaking situation. Go read the poem; it is one of my personal favorites, and has far more than this story can do justice. I of course give credit of the poem to its talented poet, not myself. Thank you for the inspiration.


End file.
